I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men's room walls
I feel every bit the after-school special commercial that I’m representing today. Or alternately, the archetypal model of those anti-drug campaign commercials that were so popular in the 1980s, some half-bearded miscreant hanging around in his boxer shorts in the mid-afternoon, waving away the plumes of drug smoke hanging in the air, as someone makes an entry. It is, I am sad to say, a sordid and sorry scene. I hit people up with text messages all day, which only goes to confound our already convoluted relationships; they, usually at work and totally unable to fathom or deal with exactly what the hell I’m talking about: bizarre song lyrics and quotes, and things which can only really be determined on some Freudian level. It is, I have to admit, pretty fucking absurd, this existence I’m living. Any minute now, I know, some television camera is going to make an entry, or the law enforcement officials, like some Kafka short story, and I will be indicted on crimes against humanity.

That’s the whole thing, really. There’s that famous Lester Bangs interview, where he’s talking to Richard Hell, and he’s quoting Nietzsche, saying how blithe people laugh at everything and they don’t have emotions. As a child and thereafter I remember thinking everything was astoundingly funny, for whatever reason. And even now, this is how I work it. It’s easier to laugh than to cry, and a lot more fun. I do not know how other people work it. But I guess in lieu of all my hilarity, everyone seems startlingly serious. Or just plain sad, really.

Some girl I was talking to recently was telling me about how she didn’t sleep at night, because she was trying to maximize her free time by offsetting the time she spent at work. This had the added effect of being really tired in the daytime. I understand this point of view. I don’t know about other people, but I tend to conceptualize whatever you’re doing for 8.5 hours a day as your life. It seems pretty much statistically true that if you’re working 8.5 hours and then sleeping a recommended 8 on top of that, that means, excluding weekends, you’re only left with a little under 8 hours a day, and most of that time is probably spent running bizarre errands and standing in line at the post-office. I understand what she’s saying. You’ve got to take the power back, as both Chuck D. and, I believe, Iggy Pop said. But then, that’s really tiring.

Being ideologically opposed to other people sets up a dynamic of insecurity for others, especially when your point of view happens to reside in the minority. I experience this every time I go to someone’s house who happens to eat meat. “Oh, no, thank you,” you tell them, as they go to hand you a bib for the steak they’re preparing. Telling someone you don’t eat meat then segues into exactly why not, and this sets off the chain reaction which has them questioning their own sense of values (or the startling lack thereof). Laughing at other people’s lifestyle choices is the same thing. And living a life which is not in accordance with the way other people live, on any level, is the same thing. It calls into question they way other people spend their time.

I start scoring exams again on Thursday, which is what I do sometimes. I remember the last time I worked there, whooping it up with the people around me and getting yelled at, actually moving the woman who sat in the immediate vicinity to wear ear-plugs. It’s OK to do for a while; it’s something. I still don’t know I want to do with my life. I may never figure it out, but that's less funny now.